



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap........ Copyright No. 

ShelflE^^^ \ 



UNITED STATES i 



:RICA. 



WHERE HE IS 



The Quiet Hour Series 

l8mo y decorated cloth, each 25 cents 

How the Inner Light Failed 

By Newell D wight Hillis, author of" A Man's Value 
to Society,' 1 etc. 

The Man Who Wanted to Help 

By Rev. J. G. K. McClure, D.D. author of " Possi- 
bilities." 

Young Men By Rev. F. W. Gunsaulus, D.D. 

The Autobiography of St. Paul 

Faith Building By Rev. Wm. P. Merrill, D.D. 

The Dearest Psalm 

And The Model Prayer. By Henry Ostrom, D.D. 
The Life Beyond 

By Mrs. Alfred Gatty, author of " Parables from 

Nature." 

Mountain Tops with Jesus 

By Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D.D. 
A Life for a Life 

And other Addresses. By Prof. Henry Drummond. 
With Portrait. 

Peace, Perfect Peace 

A Portion for the Sorrowing. By Rev. F. B. Meyer, 
B.A. 

Money 

Thoughts for God k Stewards. By Rev. Andrew 
Murray. 

Jesus Himself 

By Rev. Andrew Murray. With Portrait of the 
Author. 

Love Made Perfect By Rev. Andrew Murray. 

The Ivory Palaces of the King 

By Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D.D. 
Christ Reflected in Creation. 

By D. C. McMillan. 

Fleming H. Revell Company 
CHICAGO NEW YORK TORONTO 



Where He Is 



'That where I am, there ye may be also." 
" Lo, I am with you alway. " 



BY 

CLELAND B. McAFEE 

PARK COLLEGE 




Fleming H. Revell Company 

Chicago : New York : Toronto 
1899 
C 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 






38418 

Copyright, 1899 

by 

Fleming H. Revell Company 



~»V£D. 







CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. Our Future Home the Place 

Where He Is 7 



II. This Earth-Life Our Prep- 
aration for Being Where 
He Is 15 

III. The Personal Value of Be- 

ing Where He Is . . .29 

IV. Life Consummated in Being 

Where He Is 37 



OUR FUTURE HOME THE PLACE 
WHERE HE IS 

"That where I am, there ye may be also." 

One Sabbath evening, after a sul- 
try day, I sat tinder the open sky 
with a small circle of friends trying 
to catch some of the coolness which 
the night brought. Among us was a 
famous theologian, dean of a divinity 
faculty, scholarly and refined in 
taste, and spiritually sensitive. He 
had preached that day and so had I, 
and out of sheer weariness, neither 
had taken much part in the conver- 
sation. Presently, in a lull of talk, 
he turned to me and asked, "What 
do you think is the greatest hymn in 
the English language?" Almost 

7 



WHERE HE IS 

immediately I replied, "Rock of 
Ages, cleft for me/' "No," he said, 
"that is great, but there is a 
greater." Others suggested other 
hymns, until each member of the 
company had named one. Then we 
turned upon him, and asked his 
opinion. With a quiet eloquence 
that thrilled us and a tremor in the 
voice that added meaning to the 
words, he repeated the whole of the 
hymn beginning: 

"When I survey the wondrous cross 
On which the Prince of Glory died, 
My richest gain I count but loss 
And pour contempt on all my pride." 

There was no argument when he 
had finished. 

After a moment's stillness, I asked 
the veteran preacher and scholar a 
question which I have asked other 
men in other places, "What is the 
best prospect held before the Chris- 



WHERE HE IS 

tian for eternity?" In the same 
subdued voice, but now with a ring 
of exultation in it, he answered, 
44 And if I go and prepare a place for 
you, I will come again and receive 
you unto Myself; that where I am, 
there ye may be also." There was 
a sermon in the slight pause he made 
before the word "Myself," and 
before the word "ye." Read it 
again and stop an instant before 
each word. Do you not see that He 
is drawing our hearts to Himself 
and not to a place and not to a 
thing? Does not His infinite com- 
passion come into view in saying 
that we are to be with Him? 

The Christian's passing out of life 
is being received not into a place, 
nor unto a condition, but unto Him- 
self — Heaven is "where He is." 

How like Jesus it is to make com- 
panionship the chief attraction of 
heaven ! There are many things we 

9 



WHERE HE IS 

shall want. Sometimes we are 
allowed to see what a royal condition 
awaits us. But it is not things that 
make a home. There is a touch that 
only a personality can put on things 
that turns a house into a home. Do 
you not remember how the new 
house is made homelike by the old 
faces? Surely you have noticed how 
the old house ceases to be home 
when a dear presence is gone out 
from it. The little ones wander 
about lonesomely among the familiar 
things, calling mother, and not find- 
ing her find not home. Just a while 
ago I passed the hours of sorrow 
with some dear friends who had 
seen a lad and a lassie carried out of 
their beautiful, almost palatial, resi- 
dence. When some remarked upon 
the home, the stricken mother 
replied, "It is only a house now." 
And we understood her heart. The 
personal presence was gone. 

10 



WHERE HE IS 

In his last book, Dr. George Fred- 
erick Wright has reminded us that 
the world cannot be mere mechan- 
ism — "The universe to be a perfect 
home requires the presence of the 
heavenly Father. " It is absurd, he 
thinks, that any loving earthly 
father should attempt to build so 
commodious and beautiful a palace, 
that his children shall not care for 
his personal presence. So it is, and 
our Father has not so made heaven. 
Its chief attraction is, that it is 
where He is. 

Sometimes older brothers get 
engrossed in such large affairs and 
have such great enterprises on hand 
that younger ones annoy them. A 
moment ago a lad outside my win- 
dow sent his little brother back from 
some expedition lest he should be in 
the way. He loved his brother, but 
he did not want him about. We 
ii 



WHERE HE IS 

fathers tell our little ones to run 
away and play; we are busy. And 
the little ones look longingly around 
at the books and the manuscripts, 
but most of all at ourselves, and 
want to be with us, feel lonesome 
without us, just because they love 
us. We love them, too, but we are 
engrossed with large duties, ser- 
mons, books and the like. We can- 
not have them where we are all the 
time. After a while, when we 
throw the door wide open and call 
the little ones, how the feet come 
pattering! 

Our older Brother, our Father, 
will not shut us out from any of His 
great enterprises. We shall not be 
44 in the way. " He has room enough 
in His heart for the care of the 
worlds and of us who are children of 
His. Plato said the gods could care 
for the great things, but not for the 
small. Jesus shows us that all 

12 



WHERE HE IS 

things are great with God when 
they touch His loved ones. What- 
ever marvellous works He may do in 
the future, whatever worlds may 
spring into being through His word, 
He has not forgotten us, but holds 
before us this as the eternal future — 
that we shall be where He is. 



13 



II 



THIS EARTH-LIFE OUR PREPARATION 
FOR BEING WHERE HE IS 

"Lo, I am with you alway." 

We are to spend our future where 
He is. Do you remember He says 
that He will be where we are until 
that time? It is a most notable 
reversal. "I am with you alway." 
"When thou passest through the 
waters, I will be with thee." "I 
will never leave thee nor forsake 
thee. " Yonder, it is our compan- 
ionship with Him. Here, it is His 
companionship with us. And if 
one companionship makes heaven 
worth while, the other makes earth 
worth while. 

In our busy, grown-up lives we 
15 



WHERE HE IS 

forget how much this higher com- 
panionship of love means to us. 
Learn it again from the unspoiled 
child life. A certain little one, 
whom I have watched, often stops in 
her play and calls her father or 
mother only to hear an answer, 
when she goes on contentedly with 
her play again. She does not want 
anything, just wants to know 
whether the companionship is still 
unbroken. At times I have seen 
her carry all her playthings labor- 
iously out of a pleasanter room into 
the one where her mother lay ill or 
sat sewing, not because the play 
would be pleasanter, but because it 
was in a loved presence. 

Sometimes, when we kneel to 
pray, we cannot think of anything 
that we want, and we fault our- 
selves for it. But may it not be a 
child's longing for the companion- 
ship of love? Oh, for more hours 
16 



WHERE HE IS 

when we are not asking favors, but 
looking into His face, learning to 
have Him with us here that we may 
revel in the joy of being with Him 
there ! A little while ago I read one 
of the old traditions of a monk who 
was so godly, whose life was so 
beautiful, that his comrades won- 
dered and asked him what he did to 
develop in himself such grace of 
character. He was unconscious of it, 
and thought they misread his life. 
He did not pray more than they; he 
was not more careful and orderly in 
his devotion than were they; he 
knew not that his life outshone 
theirs. As days went on, they 
watched him, but could not learn the 
secret of the life he lived. At last it 
was observed that he stole away 
from the company each evening 
after the plain meal and was seen no 
more till morning. One day they 
followed him, and through the tiny 
17 



WHERE HE IS 

window of his cell they saw him lay 
a great volume of devotion before 
him, and by the light of a little taper 
read page after page. So he sat, 
absorbed in thought, until the mid- 
night hour struck, when he looked 
up as though he saw a familiar 
friend close by, and said, "Dear 
Lord, there is the same understand- 
ing between us." Then he extin- 
guished the light and went to his 
rest. His fellows caught the secret 
of an understanding between him 
and his Lord. It was no formal 
approach, it was no occasional com- 
munion, it was no routine of devo- 
tion, that glorified the life. It was 
an unbroken understanding between 
him and his Lord. 

How much nearer our ideal of 
living it is to have "the same under- 
standing" between us and Him! If 
we were walking up a mountain-side 
with a dear friend, we would often 
18 



WHERE HE IS 

want to exclaim over the beauty of 
the scene and the majesty of the 
ascent, but there would be little 
phrasing of the deepest pleasure of 
all, the very presence of the friend 
of our hearts. Looking back over 
such experiences we say, "The day 
was made doubly delightful by such 
a companionship." And he under- 
stood; he did not need to be told. 
Between kindred souls there is a 
magnetic sympathy that seeks no 
words, but feels more than words 
could express, if they were sought. 
A true devotion to our Lord is pos- 
sible when little vocal prayer is 
offered, when few words are said, 
when we simply keep the same 
understanding between us. 

But how do we maintain the 
understanding? Is it not by realiz- 
ing that He is now with us, and that 
the consummation of life is to be 
where He is? 

19 



WHERE HE IS 

There is much truth in the song 
which says, "I'll go where He wants 
me to go. " But Jesus offers to go 
with us where we want Him to go. 
We ask Him to "choose out our 
path" for us, and He will do it. He 
wants to do it. He does not offer to 
take our yoke upon Him, but calls us 
to take His yoke instead. Yet, He 
does let us choose out His path for 
Him here, and goes where His 
people go. Not that He gives up 
His will always to us. Sometimes 
we are about to go where He cannot 
go without shame and heartache, and 
then how tenderly He tries to hold us 
back! How pleadingly He throws 
His arm about us and whispers to 
us! Have you never noticed how 
persistently, almost annoyingly, a 
line or a stanza of a hymn, or a verse 
of Scripture, rings in your ears when 
you are starting astray, or when you 
are wandering away from your duty? 

20 



WHERE HE IS 

That is your Companion's voice, 
beloved, saying, "I am with you; 
take Me not there ; make Me not to 
go there. " But He does not leave 
us even if we persist in going where 
it shames Him to go. Perhaps you 
have been protected and restrained 
from evil, and do not realize how 
lovingly the Lord goes with His 
loved ones even into places of shame. 
Then hear a story of that love. 

It is in a Southern city, and a man 
has been over-tempted. Seated in a 
place of sin, with wine and vulgar 
jest passing about, himself among 
the bravest and brazenest of all, his 
fellows see him leap up, gaze around 
startled, and without ceremony rush 
from the room out into the night. 
He flies along the street as though 
hurried by an omnipotent hand, into 
his quiet chamber. There the morn- 
ing hours find him still weeping out 
his repentance in the ears of One 
21 



WHERE HE IS 

who had plucked him by the sleeve 
and dragged him out of sin. He 
could not tell his pastor what 
occurred, but something within him 
seemed to wail like a hurt and 
shamed companion, and it seemed to 
him so shameful that he had brought 
Him there — Him who had loved 
purity and godliness more than life, 
Him who had made heaven attract- 
ive by promising that His servant 
should be with Him — so shameful 
that he could not bear it a moment 
longer. 

Sometimes this loving Companion 
waits long before He is recognized. 
Just the other day a man approach- 
ing his seventieth year, who had 
been straying away from his Lord 
for full forty years, remarked to me 
how he had never been given up. 
His Master had been asserting Him- 
self all the time. He had wandered 
in many places ; had been where his 

22 



WHERE HE IS 

Master must have been pained to go, 
had fallen to depths where his Mas- 
ter must have been deeply shamed, 
but he had never been forsaken. 
The voice of pleading had not been 
silenced. He had drifted far, but 
never "beyond His love and care." 

There is much comfort in this 
thought of the persistent purpose of 
Jesus to be where we are. An old 
philosopher taught that God created 
man because among all His other 
creatures none could come into per- 
sonal relationship with Him and He 
was lonely for companionship. 
That is fanciful. Does it not, how- 
ever, suggest what we know is true, 
that Jesus finds such joy in our com- 
panionship here that He would be on 
the earth lonely without it, as we 
would be lonely in heaven if He 
were not there? 

But may we not flatter ourselves 
23 



WHERE HE IS 

unduly with the thought that Jesus 
wants so much to be with us? Per- 
haps we might, but there are two 
reasons for His being with us, which 
will humble us again. 

First, He is with us to help us. It 
is just because we are so weak and 
impotent of ourselves and have no 
self-sufficiency that He presses on 
with us. Shall a cripple feel flat- 
tered and proud on his own account, 
because a strong man walks by him, 
keeping him where he could not go 
alone? It is our helplessness that 
commends us to God. You remem- 
ber that great verse of promise 
wherein Jesus says, "Lo, I am with 
you alway. " Well, just before it, 
He said, "All power is given unto 
Me." As though He would say: "I 
know the work I give you is too 
much for you ; I know the life I offer 
is too hard for you ; I know the serv- 
ice I demand is too great for you; 
24 



WHERE HE IS 

but look to Me ; I have all authority, 
I can bid your foes depart or submit. 
Since all power is Mine and you 
need Me so much, I am with you 
alway. " You see it is a promise 
based on our weakness. We would 
be strange folk if we read it back- 
wards and saw in it a tribute to our 
worth ! 

Why does Jesus promise to be with 
you to-day, my brother? Is it not 
because He would give you strength 
and grace where your office-work or 
your labor becomes wearing and 
exhausting? There are problems 
for you to solve to-day — "He is 
made unto us wisdom." There are 
old sins that you would gladly for- 
get, but they will stare at you to-day 
out of accusing eyes — "He is made 
unto us righteousness." There are 
faults that will catch you unawares 
and stain the whiteness of your life 
— "He is made unto us sanctifica- 
25 



WHERE HE IS 

tion. ,, There are habits that bind 
you down to an unworthy life — u He 
is made unto us redemption. ' ' 

And you, Christian mother, why 
does your Master promise to be with 
you to-day? Is it not to remind you 
that you are dependent on Him? 
Days are dreary enough when you 
leave Him out, and He has a way of 
helping through the most annoying 
hours. That is a remarkable phrase : 
"The patience of Christ/ ' You 
mothers need Him with you that you 
may have His patience when little 
ones are cross and teasing. You 
need the fairness of Jesus with 
household help that will blunder and 
fail. You need the kindliness of 
Jesus to carry you through annoying 
social duties. It is because you need 
and have not this strength that Jesus 
presses along day by day with you. 
Let it make us all humble and glad. 

The other reason why Jesus wants 
26 



WHERE HE IS 

to be with us is that He must some- 
how make us fit to be with Him after 
a while. Have you ever thought of 
the kindliness of His word to the 
dying thief: "To-day shalt thou be 
with me in Paradise"? Of course, 
He might have sent the newly 
redeemed man on ahead into the joy- 
ful companionships, might have told 
him he should be with Abraham and 
David and Isaiah. But what a sea 
of strange faces would be there! 
How unfamiliar it would seem! 
And how much sweeter the promise 
that he should be introduced into the 
unaccustomed presence by the One 
whom he already knew and loved! 
Jesus does not allow us to come to 
that eternal companionship with 
Him until He teaches us what it 
means. There is no way by which 
we can learn it but by His compan- 
ionship with us. Some one asked a 
philologist how we learn to talk. He 
27 



WHERE HE IS 

replied, * 'By talking. M We learn to 
be with Jesus by being with Him. 
This earthly walk with Him is His 
training course wherein He gets us 
ready for our eternal life — the life 
where we shall be where He is. 



28 



Ill 

THE PERSONAL VALUE OF BEING 
WHERE HE IS 

"We shall be like Him." 

Think what effect that being with 
Christ must have on our characters. 
Holiness develops by contact. The 
very presence of a good man makes 
men better. There are birds so 
sensitive to their enemies that they 
feel their presence before they can 
see them. Sometimes waifs are 
made heroes by being brought out of 
low surroundings and into contact 
with large hearts and broad lives. 
You remember how Garfield felt 
about Mark Hopkins, that merely 
being with him was an education. 
Of the founder of a western college 
29 



WHERE HE IS 

it was once said that no man could 
ever go quite to the bad after a year 
under his influence. 

But what will it be to be in con- 
stant contact with Jesus? His 
nobility will lift us out of our mean- 
ness. His goodness will burn out 
our badness. His brightness will 
shame away our dim righteousness. 
Ah, best of all, that vision of Him 
and contact with Him will transform 
us into His likeness! 

This morning, as I look out of my 
window, the snow is falling so 
heavily that distant outlines are all 
obscured. Generally I can see the 
gaunt, ragged trees across yonder on 
the hillside. Generally the stony 
roadway up the hill, the deep-cut 
waterway by it and the washed-out 
runs are in plain view. But now 
they are all covered with a mantle 
of clear white. At first I said, "It 
is like the robe of Christ's righteous- 
30 



WHERE HE IS 

ness. " That covers the roughness 
and gashes of our lives and char- 
acters, and presents us to the eye of 
the beholder beautiful and spotless. 
Sometimes we think of that word 
about presenting us faultless before 
the Father, and of that other about 
our appearing without spot or 
wrinkle or any such thing, and sup- 
pose they promise that we are to be 
covered with the robe of Christ's 
righteousness as the snow covers the 
trees and the ruts and makes them 
appear beautiful. 

But the more I have looked out at 
the morning snow-blanket, the more 
I have rejoiced that it is not a sym- 
bol of the higher fact ; for under the 
snow still lie all the stones and the 
ruts and the blackness unchanged. 
It is only to the eye that they are 
hid. The righteousness of Christ is 
not only a robe that hides our faults; 
it is also a life that runs through us 
3* 



WHERE HE IS 

and corrects the faults that mar us. 
We are not to enter the presence of 
God with our sin merely covered, as 
David once expresses it. Rather, it 
is to be taken from us. The snow 
has not changed the hillside yonder. 
Our contact with Jesus is to work a 
transformation, not upon us, but in us. 

What else does it mean to say: 
4 'And hath made us meet to be par- 
takers of the inheritance of the saints 
in light"? We could have been made 
partakers by a mere fiat of God, no 
doubt, but no mere fiat could make 
us fit to be partakers. That must 
be wrought in us by transforming us 
and making us like Christ in our 
very life. His being with us is His 
way of working in us the transfor- 
mation. 

Years ago some one told me this 

parable-story. Two bits of charcoal 

lay in the road one day, while a 

royal company passed by. They 

32 



WHERE HE IS 

noticed a diamond set in the coro- 
net of the prince who led the com- 
pany, and knew it for a brother of 
their own, since it was but carbon, 
as were they. Both remarked upon 
the fact that they were condemned 
to spend their lives on the highway,, 
and wished that they too might 
adorn a king's brow. A fairy heard 
their complaint and asked what each 
wished. One said quickly, "Place 
me by my brother yonder on the 
coronet. ' ' Immediately it was done ; 
but a courtier noted it and asked 
his master to let him brush away the 
bit of dirt that had lodged above his 
brow, and presently the charcoal fell 
again to the ground. The other 
said, "Make me a diamond like my 
brother in the crown," and the same 
courtier leaped from his horse and 
bore the new-found gem to his 
master with joy. And the king said, 
44 Set it in the front of my crown. " 

33 



WHERE HE IS 

You must have heard it many 
times, but we cannot learn the lesson 
too clearly — that much of the joy of 
being where He is will lie in being 
fit to be with Him. He does not 
take us, worthless, debased, sinful, 
stained, and usher us into royal 
presence. He does not even cast 
over sin-marked shoulders and 
withered arms, His beautiful man- 
tle of righteousness. No, He makes 
us through and through and in very 
truth fit for that presence. 

But, beloved, how shall He do 
this marvellous work unless we will 
allow Him to be much with us here? 
Suppose we do not open our hearts 
to Him ; suppose we leave Him out 
of our thoughts and purposes — can 
He then impress upon us His own 
beauty? Or can He then work in us 
His own character? 

I remarked once to a friend that I 

34 



WHERE HE IS 

would like to meet a certain influ- 
ential teacher. He replied that I 
had met him already a dozen times, 
because I had met his pupils and he 
had a knack of duplicating himself 
in them. He overpowered them, 
made them think his thoughts, made 
them accept his philosophy, made 
them adopt his theories. Which can 
hardly be a safe thing for us humans, 
but which suggests the wonderful 
possibility of our Teacher duplicat- 
ing Himself in us, His scholars in 
life's school. He will not run us all 
in the same mould and bring us to a 
dead level, but He will make us 
over into His own likeness by 
ennobling us and culturing us. 
And He will do it by being with us, 
and keeping us where He is. 



35 



IV 

LIFE CONSUMMATED IN BEING 
WHERE HE IS 

"We shall see Him as He is." 

At the end of one of his plays 
Sheridan wrote, " Finished, thank 
God! Amen!" Not quite so can we 
feel about the ending of life. The 
presence of Jesus with us here makes 
life a royal pleasure. The Christian 
wants to live, wants to labor, wants 
to suffer with Christ. "Unto you it 
is given (as a great privilege) not 
only to believe on His name, but also 
to suffer with Him. M We must not 
lessen the joy of present life by 
thought of the greater joy of heaven. 
Phillips Brooks used to tell his near 
friends that he awoke every morning 

37 



WHERE HE IS 

with a sense of keen joy in the 
thought of the labor which he 
should that day perform. This is 
still God's world and He walks with 
us here. 

But after we have served Him 
here according to the will of God, 
and must lay down our earthly life, 
can we not say of that in true sense: 
44 Finished, thank God!" It will 
carry us along the path of Him who 
cried down to earth and up to 
heaven: 4 4 It is finished. " When it 
is finished we can thank God, for we 
shall be where He is. 

Some one sent me a paper a while 
ago that told of a young man so 
injured that he suffered intense 
agony and could not live. A 
watcher said to him, 4t Tom, my lad, 
thou art going to die." He replied, 
and his face was as of one who saw 
the invisible, 44 No, Hannah, not 
going to die — going to live, for he 



WHERE HE IS 

that believeth in Jesus shall never 
die." 

What else does the Book mean in 
saying that God's people only fall 
asleep? It was a quaint meaning 
some one got out of the old English 
expression about Stephen : "He fell 
on sleep." "Yes, he fell on sleep, 
and before he had time to cry like a 
hurt child, his Father had gathered 
him up in his arms." Dying is 
being gathered up in the Father's 
arms. It is going out to meet the 
Master's promise that we shall be 
where He is. 

Pastors are often asked whether 
they think we shaL know our friends 
in heaven. A mother tells me she is 
haunted with a strong desire to enter 
heaven where her little one is and 
with a great dread at the same time 
lest she may not know her. I heard 
one man, who believed in recogni- 

39 



WHERE HE IS 

tion in heaven, say that he thought 
it was not a very important matter, 
since he should want to have the 
first million years for looking at 
Jesus. Many of us, however, would 
be desolate at thought of eternity if 
it did not contain those whom we 
"have loved long since and lost 
a while." Well, be sure it does con- 
tain them. 

What would be the advantage of 
being where He is, if we do not 
know Him? And we are to see Him 
face to face. If our eyes are cleared 
for that vision of joy, shall we not 
also see clearly the love-light in 
familiar eyes? 

It is restful to any one who has 
been struggling with the complex 
expressions of philosophy to read the 
simple statement of Jesus regarding 
the future life. He uses the per- 
sonal pronouns, "where / am" — a 
Person here on the earth and still a 
40 



WHERE HE IS 

Person beyond the earth. 44 There 
ye may be" persons here, persons 
there. No loss of personality, no 
swallowing up of ourselves in a 
mass, no passing out into nothing- 
ness. No, here is Person with per- 
son, and the relation will be just as 
real and definite and natural as the 
relation between you and the friend 
to whom you are now reading these 
lines or to whom you last spoke. 

One of our later songs says: "I 
shall know Him by the print of the 
nails in His hands. ' ' It is a tender 
thought, but there is yet a tenderer 
one. We shall know Him rather by 
the love-light in His eyes. Once 
Jesus "looked upon Peter," and the 
look broke him down so that he went 
out and wept bitterly — poor, sinning 
Peter! But when the glory breaks 
on us and in presence of the throne 
the Savior looks upon us, it will 
mean outbursting joy and eternal 
41 



WHERE HE IS 

happiness. We shall not need any 
one to tell us who He is. Thomas 
thought he might not recognize 
Jesus after His resurrection, and 
talked a little about needing evi- 
dence. Before the evidence could 
be presented, the very sight of Jesus 
won his recognition and he claimed 
Him as Lord and God. Timid 
Christians sometimes fear that 
heaven may be strange to them, for- 
getting that they shall know their 
Master as soon as they see Him, and, 
because they know Him, shall be at 
home. 

Do you recognize that expression, 
"at home," as one of Paul's phrases? 
In one of his letters he says he does 
not know what he wants to do, to 
remain in the body or to be absent 
from the body and "at home with 
the Lord. M Now, is a man ever "at 
home" with a person whom he does 
not know? Will heaven be home to 
42 



WHERE HE IS 

us if we do not know our Lord? 
and if we know Him, why shall we 
not know also those who have gone 
before us and shall come after us? 
They, as ourselves, will be changed 
from glory into glory, transformed 
into His likeness, but still them- 
selves, with all that makes them 
unlike Him taken away, and all that 
makes them like Him brought out 
into new beauty. Be sure we shall 
know them, since we know Him. 

In this is life's consummation. It 
needs no other. A few years here 
in which He walks with us ; then an 
eternity in which we walk with Him. 
May the dear Savior and Master of 
us all bring us in His own good time 
to that home which is Home because 
it is where He is. 



43 



JUl 3 1899 



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